It is important to consider the deleterious effects of ionizing radiation when determining the use of computer tomography (CT) within medicine. For some patients, repeat scans are necessary for monitoring high risk situations. In these cases, it is beneficial to minimize the radiation dose of each scan to reduce the cumulative dose over time. However, the signal-to-noise level of low dose CT scans is significantly lower than for normal dose scans, and thus may cause a decrease in diagnostic accuracy.